Africa and its people are the most written about and the least understood of all of the world'speople. This condition started in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries with the beginningof the slave trade and the colonialism system. The Europeans not only colonized most of the world, but also began to colonize information about the world and its people. I n order to do this, they had to forget, or pretend to forget, all they had previously known about the Africans. They were not meeting them for the first time; there had been another meetingduring the Greek and Roman times. At that time the Africans and Europeanscomplemented each other.The people and the cultures of what is known as Africa are older than the word Africa. According to most records we know about, old and new, Africans are the oldestpeople on the face of the earth. The people now called Africans not only influenced theGreeks and the Romans, but they also influenced the early world before there was a placecalled Europe.

1

When the early Europeans first met Africans, at the crossroads of history, it was arespectful meeting and the Africans were not slaves. Their nations were old beforeEurope was born.

2

I n this period in history what was to be later known as "Africa" was anunknown place to the people who would someday be called "Europeans." Only thepeople of a few of the Mediterranean Islands and some states of the areas which later became Greek and Roman States knew about parts of North Africa, the land of mystery. After the rise and decline of Greek civilization and the Roman destruction of the City of